What went so wrong?

XIV and XV collectively broke square enix's brains

How much of the game do they actually make? "game development" is 90% UE5 handled these days

Two things....

Don't companies usually BRAG whenever their games sell great?

And about the PS5 its not failing it has a good size user base so why is Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth not selling great? It offered more gameplay than Remake being stuck in that one city.

Square Enix have been spouting for decades that turn-based games are dead and are hated by everyone while shitting out failure after failure.
To no one's surprise, all they've done is piss off their former audience while replacing said audience with no one.

their current audience are gacha pigs and xiv cucks

2023

BG3 utterly-destroys-square-enixs-gaslighting-over-final-fantasy-turn-based-combat/ar-AA1DIpTS

2024

Metaphor utterly-destroys-square-enixs-gaslighting-over-final-fantasy-turn-based-combat/ar-AA1DIpTS

2025

E33 utterly-destroys-square-enixs-gaslighting-over-final-fantasy-turn-based-combat/ar-AA1DIpTS

Told ya

But turn based sells good, you don't even need to use examples like Persona to show off the success of turn based. The only turn based games I can see selling badly are those that reject quality of life improvements like having the ability to not deal with enemy encounters.

No one plays their gacha shit because everyone knows it'll shit down right away. They have zero trust from customers in that industry.

gameplay

models

systems

lore

textures

story

music

plot

characters

voices

writing

The engine handles lighting, shadows some post processing and (to some degree) physics and input handling, but that's pretty much it.

the PS5 playerbase is like 90% sportsball and CoD game players

Totally. Someone should explain this to Square Enix though.

Hmmm.

This. No title outside of normie dreck is cracking 3 million. It took Sony lashing Horizon to the console for it get over that mark. Even games that are a resounding success like Helldivers 2 sold well in spite of the PS5 userbase being largely indifferent. Those motherfuckers just hate video games.

why are people acting like SE doesn't release turn-based games *all the fucking time*?

It's only $50? Weird, I assumed it was full price

XIV is printing money though.

for an indie game on gamepass that's amazing, plus everyone but some random contrarians here are praising it so it's gonna sell even more

Yeah, if the game isn't a franchise that gets yearly entries like CoD or sports games or isn't live service then it might as well not exist to the PS5 userbase.

I doubt for much longer with the quality they're putting out recently.

when even fucking MSN NEWS is dunking on Square Enix kek

no one plays the other square enix games except for kingdom hearts, and Final Fantasy used to be THE turn based 4 niggas in a row franchise

And yet these gamers who hate video games seem to be the audience that developers concentrate on.

Did Larry finally commit suicide? He's usually here with his factually barely coherent nonsense to defend the multi-million dollar company by now.

except for kingdom hearts

Not for long. Kingdom Hearts 4 is propped up to be a huge failure. Disney is a huge liability brand these days since people really hate The Mouse. And then you have other problems like the shoddy story damaging the characters. And then you have the inconsistent gameplay. And then you have the whole mobile games are important to Kingdom Hearts fiasco.

Kingdom Hearts 4 has a HUGE uphill battle to sell well. Oh and lets not forget Sora in Smash Bros was received WORSE than King K Rool and Banjo, characters who haven't shown up in gaming in many years while Kingdom Hearts remained an active series getting sequels. Goes to show that interest in Kingdom Hearts is shrinking. And if they include things like Live Action Latino Snow White that will only poison Kingdom Hearts further.

As someone who isn't a huge FF fan (I love V and can't get into the rest aside from KH), does anyone actually like the "realistic" artstyle they've stuck with for 15 years since XIII? Do people actually prefer Cloud in Remake over how he looks in Smash or the original CG renders?

i play every saga game, last ff i ever played was 6, back when it first released

meanwhile its competition is sportsball and other games that released last year

Japan sucks, you should hate them and give your money to Western devs!

I'm getting FFXIII vs. Mass Effect flashbacks.

Not to mention its FINAL FANTASY with a 30 year pedigree of name recognition versus a game from a few dozen randos

Square Enix are Japanese in name only at this point

I like both art styles BUT I greatly prefer the anime Nomura artwork style. Even Sakaguchi said before he left Squaresoft that if Final Fantasy 7 was ever remade he would envision an anime art style. And I agree with him. Final Fantasy 7 Remake having cutting edge anime visuals like the latest Guilty Gear would be a visual treat.

And one other thing whoever is in charge of graphics for Kingdom Hearts games needs to be fired because Kingdom Hearts 3 looks.....soulless. I'm not joking the old PS2 Kingdom Hearts games look much better, the models are more animated and expressive. Don't know what's wrong with Square Enix these days. I refused to play Final Fantasy 16 because the graphics looked drab and depressing like Game of Thrones.

Not really. I've never talked to anyone, even in this shithole, that defends the artstyle. I have no idea what yes-men at SE keep pushing this shit.

The actual concept artists at SE must be pulling their hair out.

Don't companies usually BRAG whenever their games sell great?

Square Enix is literally never happy with their games' sales no matter what. KH3 sold 3mil and Squeenix marked it as underwhelming.

Did they start outsourcing to Indians or something? If not, the reason they suck now isn't because they're not Japanese, it's because they've been bleeding talent since the PS2 era.

Destroying sports games and AAA-slop on the PS5 is surprisingly rare.

But Kingdom Hearts 3 overall sold six million units that's not a failure. What's wrong with Square Enix?

They should've stayed square soft

Oh they brag all the time, it just has to be a number worth actually bragging about.
Less than 3m sales for a AAA video game based on the most iconic JRPG ever made, FF7, isn't bragging worthy.

That has always been the art style they've been aiming for since at least FF8, secondary. And yes, it is kino.

To be fair, KH3 suffers heavily visually from having swapped to an engine nobody at the company knew jack shit about mid-development. You can tell because they have no fucking clue how to make things like hands work in the new engine when they looked fine in the original reveal trailer.

The real test of whether or not KH's artstyle is irreparably fucked by the move to higher res is going to be KH4, since that's in an engine the team is familiar with by now and won't be swapping halfway through. Unfortunately, all we've seen of KH4 so far is the world that's been stated to be unique in its lean towards realism, plus one shot of Donald and Goofy (who did look leagues better than they did in KH3, admittedly).

I can't wait for Larry to try to defend KH4. That shit's going to flop as hard as FF7R3.

Sometimes I think the only reason we have to deal with the graphical style of the right is because its considered more advanced and with such high end graphics Square Enix can justify raising the price because no way you can charge the current price and the DLC like Intergrade with weaker looking visuals. It's all about justifying the expensive modern price.

And then you have examples like Nintendo they make the weakest under powered visuals ever for their games and charge MORE than Square Enix does right now. Disgusting.

Frankly, as retarded as Nintendo is, I'm more willing to support them because their weaker hardware has lead them to be the only remaining "AAA" company that pushes for good stylization. In a hypothetical world where KH was a Nintendo-exclusive franchise, I think it would have genuinely been better off artistically because they would have pushed towards evolving the KH1/KH2 model style, rather than going for whatever the fuck nightmarish hybrid shit KH3 was trying to do.

Destroying

depends on the sales numbers IMO
as it is the game is going up against a college football preorder, a baseball game and Xbox Gamepass' leftovers

Time will tell whether Kingdom Hearts 4 is good or a huge failure but so many things are lined up to go wrong for Kingdom Hearts 4. And no, casuals and normies cannot rescue Kingdom Hearts 4. Its the fourth game of a main series n one is going to use Kingdom Hearts 4 as their first experience with Kingdom Hearts it would be too confusing. That's like playing God of War Ragnarok as your first God of War game while expecting the game to explain every story element from the previous main games, that's ridiculous.

Kingdom Hearts 4 won't sell better than Kingdom Hearts 3.

I'll still play all that garbage as long as it has Nomura Soul.

And if they include things like Live Action Latino Snow White that will only poison Kingdom Hearts further.

Best we can hope for is for them to reuse worlds as much as possible. Only new world should be Moana, Up, or Wall-E.

Don't know what else to say except that I respect your take but Nintendo right now objectively doesn't deserve their greed rewarded. That's it.

tfw some mobile phone port switch game about collecting dragon quest pokeymon outsells FF7REBIRTH

KH4 has far less going wrong for it already than KH3 ever did. Squeenix management is just as retarded as ever, but Disney management is being far less autistic about crossovers these days than they were back in 2013-2016, and KH3's dev cycle was irreparably fucked by the remaining baggage of the FUCKING LUMINOUS ENGINE ruining everything it touches. KH3 also sold well despite having far, far more plot baggage than KH4 will thanks to KH3's ending being a soft-reboot of sorts. If Final Fantasy 7 can get normalfags despite having a 7 in a title, KH shouldn't have much of a problem either, especially since more and more people are into the series these days thanks to Squeenix making the collections pretty fucking widely accessible.

Time will tell whether or not it's actually GOOD, but I don't think it's in anywhere near the same kind as dire straits as KH3.

Oh, they definitely don't. The price hikes are retarded, but I fucking hate all major companies right now. I just hate Nintendo the least because, if nothing else, their most retarded behavior comes at the point of purchase rather than fucking up the games themselves.

daffy duck is cool there should be more daffy duck videogames

lol I messed up on the college football game in , the one on that list is about to become obsolete because it's last year's release and the new game is dropping in less than 3 months